Free and Open Source Software Recommendations!

Both Alix Peshette and I blogged on this today, so it seems to make sense to put it in a forum post that will better track the discussion. Great stuff!

Tags: floss, opensource

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Permalink Reply by Alix E. Peshette on May 31, 2007 at 9:42pm

A wonderfully fun piece of FOSS game-programming software from MIT was mentioned in a recent EdTech listserv posting. It's called Scratch and is a tile-based visual programming environment and toolkit, that lets kids make games, animated stories, interactive art, and share with others on the Net.

http://scratch.mit.edu/

I downloaded it and played a bit in it. While the imagery and options look best suited for 4th - 8th grades, I bet the concepts can be extended into some sophisticated projects. I especially liked the very visual programming script blocks, which made it really easy to see how the script was going to work.

I've used and taught Game Maker 6.0 (another FOSS) in summer sessions for a Kids-on-Campus program, but this summer we will be using Scratch. http://www.gamemaker.nl/

Permalink Reply by SusanTsairi on July 5, 2007 at 4:02am

Sholom Eisenstat posted today or was it yesterday about SOPHIE, a new downloadable app, still very much in beta, smalltalk based multimedia authoring tool which enables the user to create 'books' with text, images, video, buttons, etc. and place any and all onto a timeline.
I took a look at the demo, looks very interesting, downloaded the program but haven't tried it yet..
http://sophieproject.org/

Permalink Reply by Janek Wagner on August 30, 2007 at 2:47am

Sorry, are Scratch or Game Maker really Open Source Software? Have you got its sources for download?

Permalink Reply by Kevin Stachowski on July 11, 2007 at 4:52pm

Most of my experience with open source involves loading web based programs on a linux box. Here's a link to a presentation I did for our state technology conference. You can access a pdf of my powerpoint presentation if this is something that interests you.

Open Source Web-Based Solutions for Schools

Source Forge has been great. Several times when we have had a need, I searched sourceforge and found the perfect piece of open source software to fit our need.

We use Meeting Room Booking System for the teachers to book laptop carts and other pieces of technology on our website. It even has a modification to allow the schedule to adapt itself for periods or bells instead of hours of the day.

We used Unit Command Climate Assessment and Survey System (UCCASS) to do the plethora of surveys we had to do for our schools last round of accreditation.

For several years I ran the schools website with PHPWebsite.

Has anyone else found any useful open source web apps for a K-16 environment?

Permalink Reply by Ray Tolley on July 16, 2007 at 11:32am

Wow! Thanks for such a great list - it will take me ages to work through it all.

However, I didn't see Google's Picasa2 listed.

I loaded this and was astounded by how many images I'd tucked away and forgotten about! Picasa has allowed me to find and organise my graphicsfar better than any other app I've got.

Best Wishes,

Ray T

Permalink Reply by Steve Hargadon on July 16, 2007 at 11:38am

Great program, which Google has made available for Linux, but not Open Source, I don't think.

You may not need this information, but someone else looking at this might: Linux is a Free and Open Source operating system, but a program that runs on Linux may not be Open Source. In the same way, there are many good Free and Open Source programs which run on Windows or the Mac OS.

Take care.

Permalink Reply by Colette Cassinelli on August 2, 2007 at 2:09pm

Hello Open Source folks.
I am a private high school computer teacher and this year I would love my after school computer club to embrace OSS for club use. The club members are always so frustrated of the restrictions on the school computers so my idea is to let them build a few machines and install ALL OSS. Has anyone else done something like this? Do you have any recommendations, tips or mistakes to avoid?
Thanks,
Colette

Permalink Reply by Janek Wagner on August 30, 2007 at 2:17am

I have got new catalog of Open Source Software for School Free Software for Schools by Open Source Victoria and The National Center for Open Source and Education (19MB PDF).

Each software title is provided, along with a quick description, an indicative screenshot, and a web
(URL) location with more information and from where that software application can be
downloaded from. Additionally, the supported platforms (Windows, Mac and Linux) are listed.

Permalink Reply by Dean Mantz on September 30, 2007 at 9:41am

Here are three additional programs that I have came across while searching the web.
1. Scribus - Desktop publishing software package. (www.scribus.net)
2. Squeak - Animation software (www.squeak.org)
3. Cue Card - Electronic cue cards/note cards for replacing the paper cue cards/note cards. (www.download.com) Teacher Tube offers a video that walks you through the usage of this application.

Permalink Reply by Kelley Irish on November 9, 2007 at 9:28pm

I have never had anything a budget-so since everything came out of my teacher paycheck-I haved used lots of Open source.

Here i my list-many are copied and pasted from other peoples lists and forums....
Publishing
Desktop Publishing http://www.scribus.net/ Scribus is powerful software that helps you create great looking documents of all kinds
OpenOffice

http://www.OpenOffice.org

OpenOffice.org the product is a multi-platform office productivity suite. It includes the key desktop applications, such as a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation manager, and drawing program, with a user interface and feature set similar to other office suites. Sophisticated and flexible, OpenOffice.org also works transparently with a variety

Mind Mapping http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page FreeMind is a premier free mind-mapping software written in Java, Free alternative to Inspiration.

Digital Photo/Audio/Video Stuff

Photo Editor http://seashore.sourceforge.net/index.php Seashore is an open source image editor for Cocoa.

Image Editor http://www.izhuk.com/painter/ on-line image editor

Digital Morphing- http://www.morpheussoftware.net/ This amazing picture morphing software transforms one person or object into another before your eyes!

Digital Photo http://picasa.google.com/ Locate and organize all the photos on your computer. Edit and add effects to your photos with a few simple clicks.

Audacity

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Audacity is a free, easy-to-use audio editor and recorder for Windows, Mac OS X, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems.

Blender

http://www.blender.org

Blender is the Open Source Software for 3D modeling, animation, rendering, post-production, interactive creation, and playback. Blender allows students and teachers to animate 3D computer graphics.

Cam Studio

http://camstudio.org/Records screen activity from the Windows desktop into standard AVI movie files.

Mediacider

translates audio video fileshttp://mediacoder.sourceforge.net/download.htm

Language

Spelling Help http://spellmaster.com/ Providing stimulating activities in a wide range languages.

Maps

Google Earth http://www.izhuk.com/painter/ google earth

Drawing

C.A.D. www.sketchup.com/ Sketch Up CAD Program

Drawing www.tuxpaint.org Program similar to Kid Pix Paint

3D Model Maker http://sourceforge.net/projects/aoi Art of Illusion is a full featured 3D modelling, rendering, and animation studio. It is written entirely in Java, and can run on almost any operating system.

nterior Design http://sourceforge.net/projects/sweethome3dJava application for quickly choosing and placing furniture on a house 2D plan drawn by the end-user, with a final 3D preview

Painting http://www.ambientdesign.com/artrage.html Easy to use, stylish painting package that lets you get painting from the moment you open it up. You can paint with oils, sketch with pencils, sprinkle glitter, and more. You can paint with gold leaf, silver foil, and other metallic colors. You can even load in your photos as Tracing Images to help you recreate them as paintings

Pop Art http://www.photo-freeware.net/andy-warhol-replicator.phpThe Andy Warhol Replicator is an outstanding application for adding Pop-Art effects to your digital photos. The freeware comes with ready to use filter effects pre-defined in various color compositions. As adddition, Andy Warhol Replicator can be used for grey scaling, picture rotating, sharpening and black-and-white converting.

Simulations

Celestia

http://www.shatters.net/celestia

The free space simulation that lets users explore the universe in three dimensions. Celestia comes with a large catalog of stars, galaxies, planets, moons, asteroids, comets, and spacecraft, as well as a catalog of additional downloads. Students and teachers can plot a course and navigate a 3D solar system. See also http://www.stellarium.org

Open City http://sourceforge.net/projects/opencity Similar to Sim City

Programming Languages
http://www.mathsnet.net/logo/turtlelogo/index.html logo the turtle interactive on line version no downlaod required

http://www.softronix.com/logo.html free downloadable logo program

http://www.rm.com/Primary/Products/Product.asp?cref=PD293632 Imagine a logo program

http://www.teem.org.uk/etours/etour.aspx?id=1645 etour of Imagine Logo

www.tessellations.org/tesselmania0.html However, in its free "trial" version, the FILE >> SAVE menu will only allow you to save in Tesselmania's unique *.TSS format. I take a screen shot and paste in Paint.

http://www.squeakland.org/ Squeak is a "media authoring tool"-- software that you can download to your computer and then use to create your own media or share and play with others.

http://bridgecontest.usma.edu/ Westpoint Bridge design. After designing online I have the children construct bridges from their designs using gumdrops and toothpicks.

http://scratch.mit.edu/ Scratch is a new programming language that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art -- and share your creations on the web. Scratch is designed to help young people (ages 8 and up) develop 21st century learning skills. As they create Scratch projects, young people learn important mathematical and computational ideas, while also gaining a deeper understanding of the process of design

http://www.alice.org/ Alice is an innovative 3D programming environment that makes it easy to create an animation for telling a story, playing an interactive game, or a video to share on the web. Alice is a teaching tool for introductory computing. It uses 3D graphics and a drag-and-drop interface to facilitate a more engaging, less frustrating first programming experience.

These are the ones I haven't tried yet:

http://www.tygh.co.uk/ intro to flash- I am learning this

http://www.toontalk.com/ Describes ToonTalk - an animated interactive world inside of which children can build programs and games.

http://www.stagecast.com/ Stagecast Creator gives you the power to create interactive simulations, stories, games, and more!

http://www.kidsprogramminglanguage.com/download.php Kids programing language. version 1.1 is free. It has advanced into phrogram below which you have to pay for.

This is supposed to be the easiest one to learn. Now all I need is time.

http://phrogram.com/ Make your own PC games, tell interactive stories and learn what it takes to "code" ...

http://www.opencroquet.org/index.php/Main_Page Croquet is a powerful open source software development environment for the creation and large-scale distributed deployment of multi-user virtual 3D applications and metaverses. The screen shots make it look similar to Alice. Uses avatars similar to those in Second Life.

http://sophieproject.org/Sophie's raison d'être is to enable people to create robust, elegant rich-media, networked documents without recourse to programming. We have word processors, video, audio and photo editors but no viable options for assembling the parts into a complex whole except tools like Flash which are expensive, hard to use, and often create documents with closed proprietary file formats. Sophie promises to open up the world of multimedia authoring to a wide range of creative people. Sophie was just released in July of 2007

Klik and Play is an object oriented programming environment, free for use in school activities. Simple games can be easily created by absolute beginners. With more experience and by devoting some time to studying the manual, quite elaborate shoot-the-badguys or destroy-the-aliens type of games can be created.

Other Helpful Software

http://bubbl.us/edit.php on line graph organizer- very similar to Inspiration and you do not have to buy it.

http://del.icio.us/ bookmarking site to keep track of the places you go

http://www.zotero.org/

Zotero [zoh-TAIR-oh] is a free, easy-to-use Firefox extension to help you collect, manage, and cite your research sources. It lives right where you do your work — in the web browser itself.

http://pbwiki.com wiki

http://www.peda.com/download/ Tesselations, graphing programs, gif creator, polograms

http://earth.google.com/ Google Earth combines the power of Google Search with satellite imagery, maps, terrain and 3D buildings to put the world's geographic information at your fingertips.

http://sketchup.google.com/ A 3D software tool that combines a tool-set with an intelligent drawing system. Enables to place models using real-world coordinates and share them.

http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page FreeMind is a premier free mind-mapping (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_map) software written in Java. The recent development has hopefully turned it into high productivity tool. We are proud that the operation and navigation of FreeMind is faster than that of MindManager because of one-click "fold / unfold" and "follow link" operations. Good alternative to Inspiration.

Permalink Reply by Gerald Logan on December 12, 2007 at 9:29pm

I have been using open source software for several years. Most of the titles I have used have been listed on other lists with one exception. It is a primary education program that I find useful for 4 to 8 year olds. It is called Childsplay and can be found at http://childsplay.sourceforge.net/

Permalink Reply by Ed Hitchcock on December 13, 2007 at 7:41am